There are things that you – or at least I – rarely think about in life. For example, how do I pay for a boat for several hundred thousand in a foreign currency? But now we have been faced with precisely this question with the purchase of our new catamaran.
Naive as I am, I thought we would simply transfer the amount and that would be that. But unfortunately it’s not quite that simple. Firstly, the authorities quickly become suspicious of amounts over 10k euros due to money laundering issues. Secondly, my account has a transfer limit for security reasons. And thirdly, a transfer abroad through the house bank costs an unacceptable amount in fees.
So how do you get rid of your money for buying a boat outside the euro zone? Quite simply, you use a service provider. In our case, the international money transfer company TorFX, which has an account in Germany. You open an account, are verified and can then have the desired amount transferred to the account. This then requires the house bank, as the security limit still exists, of course. In our case, we used a company that was recommended to us by the broker and had an extensive discussion with the responsible employee Adam beforehand. Of course, we also informed the advisors at our bank accordingly. This way, we were reasonably sure that nothing would go wrong with the transaction and that the money would end up in other accounts. The money transfer company then tries to offer the best possible exchange rate and forwards the money to the broker in the appropriate currency. The broker in turn holds everything for the seller and then forwards the money to the seller after completion and deduction of his brokerage fee.
Nevertheless, we still had a strange feeling. Even if everything is reputable and you somehow have no other option, transferring such large sums is a nerve-wracking process. In the end, however, everything went well and the money was not lost or diverted somewhere along the way.